Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Medium VS giscus

Compare Medium VS giscus and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Medium logo Medium

Welcome to Medium, a place to read, write, and interact with the stories that matter most to you.

giscus logo giscus

A comments system powered by GitHub Discussions. Let visitors leave comments and reactions on your website via GitHub!
  • Medium Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-08
  • giscus Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-22

Medium features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Medium offers an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple for anyone to start writing and publishing content without any technical knowledge.
  • Built-in Audience
    The platform has a large and active user base, so new content has the potential to reach a wide audience quickly.
  • Publishing Tools
    Medium provides versatile publishing tools that support text, images, and various media formats, which helps in creating rich and engaging content.
  • SEO Benefits
    Articles posted on Medium tend to rank well in search engine results, thanks to the platform's high domain authority.
  • Community and Interaction
    Medium encourages reader engagement through comments, claps, and highlights, fostering a sense of community among writers and readers.

Possible disadvantages of Medium

  • Monetization
    While Medium has a Partner Program, it may not be as lucrative as other methods of monetization available on independent blogging platforms.
  • Control and Customization
    Medium offers limited customization options compared to dedicated blog platforms like WordPress, restricting how you can brand and personalize your blog.
  • Content Ownership
    By publishing on Medium, you agree to their terms and conditions, which may include giving up some control over how your content is used and distributed.
  • Paywall Issues
    Some articles are placed behind a paywall, which might limit the reach of your content if you want it to be freely accessible to everyone.
  • Dependency on Platform
    Relying solely on Medium means that any changes to the platform's policies or algorithms can directly impact your reach and engagement.

giscus features and specs

  • GitHub Integration
    Giscus leverages GitHub Discussions for comment management, which means that it inherits all the collaborative features and ecosystem integration of GitHub.
  • Privacy-Focused
    Since it uses GitHub for comments, Giscus does not track users or show ads, making it a more privacy-friendly alternative to other commenting systems.
  • Open Source
    Giscus is open-source, allowing developers to inspect the code, contribute to its development, and ensure that there are no hidden functionalities.
  • Easy Integration
    Adding Giscus to a website is straightforward and well-documented, requiring minimal effort to get up and running.
  • Markdown Support
    Comments in Giscus support Markdown, which allows users to format their messages easily and include features like code snippets.

Possible disadvantages of giscus

  • GitHub Account Requirement
    Users need a GitHub account to participate in discussions, which might limit engagement from non-developer audiences or those unwilling to create an account.
  • Dependency on GitHub
    The system is heavily dependent on the availability and reliability of GitHub's services, making it vulnerable to outages or changes in GitHub's API.
  • Potential Complexity
    The need to manage comments through GitHub Discussions might introduce complexity for users who are unfamiliar with GitHub's interface.
  • Limited Customization
    Customization options for the appearance and behavior of the comment section are less extensive compared to some other commenting platforms.
  • No Anonymous Comments
    The requirement for a GitHub account means that anonymous commenting is not an option, which might deter some users from participating.

Analysis of Medium

Overall verdict

  • Medium can be considered a good platform for those who enjoy a wide array of content and appreciate quality writing on diverse subjects. However, the value of Medium depends on individual preferences and whether the topics and writing styles align with what the reader is looking for.

Why this product is good

  • Medium offers a diverse range of articles from both professional and amateur writers, providing readers with numerous perspectives on various topics. Its clean user interface and ease of use make it an appealing platform for both writers and readers. The platform also supports monetization for writers, allowing them to earn from their content.

Recommended for

    Medium is recommended for avid readers seeking a variety of topics ranging from personal development to technology. It's also ideal for writers looking to publish their work to a broad audience and potentially earn revenue through the platform's Partner Program.

Medium videos

Medium Review - with Tom Vasel

More videos:

  • Review - Starting a blog on Medium.com? Watch this FIRST.
  • Review - The Medium Review
  • Review - The Medium - Before You Buy
  • Review - I recommend: The Medium (Review)

giscus videos

No giscus videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Medium and giscus)
Blogging
100 100%
0% 0
Social Networks
0 0%
100% 100
Blogging Platform
100 100%
0% 0
Project Management
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Medium and giscus. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Medium and giscus

Medium Reviews

19 Best WordPress Alternatives in 2025
Medium focuses on thoughtful content and community engagement. It offers a user-friendly interface, a large readership base, and various features for writers and readers.
Source: www.pixpa.com
25+ Medium Alternative Platforms for Publishing Articles
Medium is an online platform that was created in 2012 by Evan Williams. It is a place for people to share their thoughts and ideas on various topics. Medium has about 100 million monthly visitors, which makes it one of the most popular platforms for publishing articles.
Source: forgefusion.io
10 Best Medium Alternatives for Reading and Publishing
From thะต simplicity of Ghost to thะต vะตrsatility of Substack, thะตrะตโ€™s a homะต for ะตvะตryonะต seeking great Medium alternatives. Thะตsะต altะตrnativะตs offะตr a world of possibilitiะตs for rะตadะตrs and authors alikะต. Whะตthะตr youโ€™rะต in sะตarch of a uniquะต platform to sharะต your thoughts or want to read frะตsh contะตnt, thะตsะต platforms havะต somะตthing spะตcial to offะตr. All in all, we...
9 Best Medium Alternatives for Making Money With Your Writing in 2023
Substack and Medium differ primarily in their monetization methods. Medium pays creators based on reader engagement, while Substack enables writers to monetize directly through paid subscriptions to their newsletters. This business model allows Substack users to build a direct relationship with their readers via their email inboxes, whereas Medium interactions primarily...
How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform in 2021 (Compared)
Medium works much like a social networking site where you can create an account and start publishing your articles. After you sign up, youโ€™ll have a profile address like this: https://medium.com/@yourname. But you cannot use your own domain.

giscus Reviews

We have no reviews of giscus yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Medium seems to be a lot more popular than giscus. While we know about 3082 links to Medium, we've tracked only 33 mentions of giscus. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Medium mentions (3082)

  • Ask HN: Best Podcasts of 2026 [So Far]
    The tests are in no way scientific. Do a little research and you will find some horrifying truths about what is presented. https://medium.com/@randomuser_11627/the-telepathy-tapes-is-a-scam-606f7e11963e https://jonogden.substack.com/p/lets-talk-about-the-telepathy-tapes https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-telepathy-tapes-more-fc-pseudoscience/. - Source: Hacker News / 1 day ago
  • Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software
    Console vs PC is a red herring since UE games still stutter on consoles, people just notice that less because most games run at 30 fps anyway. You can read Unreal's own blog posts on this and they'll actually explain that this is mostly down to their material system (and game logic/scripts reaching into it) being designed to create nearly infinite shader variations on the fly in response to arbitrary world/game... - Source: Hacker News / 1 day ago
  • Why migrants come to Germany for work and then leave again
    I'm no expert on haplogroups either, but cursory googling seems to indicate they are far more numerous and nuanced than the late victorian, scientific-racism derived classifications used today - i.e.: black, white, asian etc. But we don't need to be specialists in population genetics to observe that human cultures interbreed. We can't reliably correlate visible biomarkers with genetic origin, especially in... - Source: Hacker News / 2 days ago
  • Footage Shows Cop Stalking Woman After Surveilling Her with a LPR
    I think it's intresting to read about the guy who made yolo, take a look at his website and later, his thoughts about the monster he may have created. https://medium.com/@graham.wallington/the-evolution-of-yolo-joseph-redmons-departure-and-the-ethics-of-computer-vision-66d9b75f0eca https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 days ago
  • The Private Capture of Public Genius
    One hardly needs to soar to the exalted heights of "mysticism" or any sort of "ineffable qualities" to come into contact with the limitations of LLMs. 1) Models do not perform the functional equivalent of reasoning at all. When we reason, we don't simply babble out textual derivations of prior examples of "reasoning" to which we have been exposed, arrive at a conclusion, then occasionally state an altogether... - Source: Hacker News / 3 days ago
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giscus mentions (33)

  • Leave a Trace
    Maybe giscus https://giscus.app/ It works for static sites, you just need to embed their script, and spam and moderation would be handled by GitHub. - Source: Hacker News / 20 days ago
  • Don't rent the cloud, own instead
    Look the bottom of that page: An error occurred: API rate limit already exceeded for installation ID 73591946. Error from https://giscus.app/ Fellow says one thing and uses another. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Disqus Turned My Blog into an Ad Farm โ€“ So I Killed It
    I did the same. I was sad to lose the comments, but the ads were awful and I don't particularly want someone elses ads / tracking on my hobby site. I switched to gisqus [1], which is powered by GitHub discussions, which seems to be working ok. (The site is hosted on GH pages so seems reasonable to also use GH discussions for the comments.) [1] https://giscus.app/. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Rewriting my blog in plain HTML
    3) No commenting feature, luckily I found your post here on HN. But it would be better to have comment blocks, like from https://giscus.app/ or just a link where readers can comment. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: Best self-hosted wiki for local communities?
    If you're a developer, you might start by using a static site generator and GitHub Pages. Stick to Markdown and start collecting and writing stuff. Sooner or later you'll get comments and regular readers. Then you might start to add editing or simply give other people access to GitHub. The editing experience of Markdown files in GitHub is not too bad and you get started in no time. From my experience it's more... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Medium and giscus, you can also consider the following products

Ghost - Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. We power blogs, magazines and journalists from Zappos to Sky News.

DISQUS - Disqus is a global comment system that improves discussion on websites and connects conversations across the web.

DEV.to - Where software engineers connect, build their resumes, and grow.

utterances - A lightweight comments widget built on GitHub issues.

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

ReplyBox - ReplyBox, a simple, honest comment system. No ads, no dodgy affiliate links, no fluff.